Tuesday, 21 April 2015

So the saying goes, opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one. Everyone is a critic to some degree and everyone wants to have their opinions heard. It's human nature and these opinions can create some of the best and most interesting debates, especially when you have two opinions that are opposed but equally passionate.

But if we focus primarily on gaming, you only need to have a cursory glance across the comments sections of Eurogamer or IGN to see how immediate people's opinions can be to a bit of gaming news. Look at forums like NeoGAF and you'll find huge arguments and debates raging about the largest and smallest facets of gaming.

But are these constant debates undermining what gaming is about?

At the time of writing, Bloodborne has been out for less than a month, yet already in the Fextralife forums there are threads discussing what people don't like in the game, what people would want changed in future patches and even what people would like to see in Bloodborne 2. Hidetaka Miyazaki and his A Team at From Software spent three years making the game, poring over every detail and making it as good as humanly possible and already people are tearing it to shreds over the tiny little things.

What issues have they got with the game? Nothing at all, but people want magic attacks, or a move back to medieval fantasy or even less bosses. LESS BOSSES?

Anyway, my point is that as soon as a game comes out we the gaming people seem completely unable to just enjoy the game for what it is. It's worse when there's actually nothing wrong with the game. I expect the internet to be full of fervour when broken games like Assassin's Creed: Unity or Halo: MCC come out and are actually genuine disappointments, or when the latest Call Of Duty comes out and everyone remains disappointed that nothing has actually changed for the better.

It's not just the AAA games that receive this kind of treatment either. I've seen Indie charmers like Shovel Knight, Spelunky, Never Alone and Binding Of Isaac all have their finer points taken apart by players when really, there's nothing wrong with them.

What people seem to forget is that games these days are the product of thousands of man hours worth of work, where teams of people push towards a common goal; making the best game possible. People like Miyazaki-san are becoming auteurs of the digital age. The effort that developers are putting into creating engaging worlds that suck players in is gargantuan, yet people are so concerned with the tiniest details that don't sit with their perfect view of gaming.

Here's s tip, just enjoy the damn game. Play it, breathe it, experience it. If it's bad, then make your voice heard, but if the game is great and all you care about is the specific damage per second on a weapon or just precisely how difficult a map is to navigate, do us all a favour and keep it to yourself. Games are supposed to be fun, so stop worrying so much about the minutiae and just enjoy yourself.